"If you had a T-shirt that said "I hate White People" and you walked into a mall wearing it, the security would probably ask you to leave, or ask you to cover up your shirt."
And that's the problem with Google+ here. They didn't ask anything. They did the t-shirt in a mall equivalent of stealing his t-shirt while he wasn't looking.
It seems pretty obvious how this should work:
(1) Google enables a flag for offensive photos (some automated system might work in tandem with this).
(2) Someone who's offended by a photo (or automated system) flags it.
(3) The user sees that someone has flagged it, might change it himself.
(4) Google sees the flag and reviews the image for possible action. Some sort of adjudication record is created and available for both the user the image belongs to and anyone who reported it.
(5) The user has some recourse to appeal if Google takes action to remove the user's picture.
Google, having a terrible customer service background, just went with the big brother approach.
> "If you had a T-shirt that said "I hate White People" and you walked into a mall wearing it, the security would probably ask you to leave, or ask you to cover up your shirt."
> And that's the problem with Google+ here. They didn't ask anything. They did the t-shirt in a mall equivalent of stealing his t-shirt while he wasn't looking.
And that's the problem with analogies relating the Internet to the real world: they often fail because the Internet doesn't work like the real world. (I will say that this does come remarkably closer to the concept of "stealing bits" than how people usually use terms like "stealing", since the original owner might not have those bits anymore, but who would leave their only copy of a picture on a site they don't own, particularly one whose policies don't include preserving your data no matter what?)
Another marginally more accurate analogy, though still potentially flawed if you try to read too much into it: if you rented space in a mall, and displayed offensive material there, they might ask you to leave, or they might just close up your shop for you and kick you and your stuff out, and either way they have every right to do so.
The fifth point is a great idea that more services need to get behind in all areas. But aside from that one, this all sounds like pointless bureaucracy and foot-dragging, and well beyond what just about any other service on the planet does. (I've moderated a number of forums, and I can't think of a one where we routinely gave people a record of how their flags were resolved.)
And that's the problem with Google+ here. They didn't ask anything. They did the t-shirt in a mall equivalent of stealing his t-shirt while he wasn't looking.
It seems pretty obvious how this should work:
(1) Google enables a flag for offensive photos (some automated system might work in tandem with this).
(2) Someone who's offended by a photo (or automated system) flags it.
(3) The user sees that someone has flagged it, might change it himself.
(4) Google sees the flag and reviews the image for possible action. Some sort of adjudication record is created and available for both the user the image belongs to and anyone who reported it.
(5) The user has some recourse to appeal if Google takes action to remove the user's picture.
Google, having a terrible customer service background, just went with the big brother approach.